With the rapidly changing environment we are currently dealing with we feel it is important to keep people up to date as constantly as possible, especially given that we are such a close community and we think of this place as an extended family, and in many cases closer than much of our blood family is. As we stated in our previous e-mail and have been mentioning to classes our full intention is to keep CVCF open as long as possible. Dani and myself are very much “realists,” we are very much aware that this could blow over and not turn out to be much more than it already is, at the same time it could truly turn into a worldwide crisis and shut everything down (I completely have come to the acceptance that I will likely get it, as well as Dani at some point and will need to be self-quarantined at some point). As many small business owners out there who are in the same boat, our biggest fear is the closure of our business and the repercussions that it will likely have, especially if it is an extended period of time. We have already had a handful of individuals cancel their memberships and our hope is that most of our clients see the importance in their health and wellness in the big picture of this issue and continue to make this place a regular stop in their daily lives. With that a few notes for the gym as well as some personal thoughts for you all.

Class Cancellations

For the immediate future we will be keeping the gym closed on Sunday, so there will be no Open gym. This is the slowest day of the week for us, with generally not more than 5% of our clientele making it in, so this seems like a fitting day to encourage everyone to stay home, as well as give the gym about a 40 hour downtime period where we don’t have to worry about any new germs coming in and our cleaning really settling in. Most reports are currently saying the virus can survive around 6-24 hours depending on the surface so this should give the opportunity to do our best to let things die off.

Aside from Sunday, we are currently planing to keep all normal hours. We would ask that those who have made a habit of coming in at misc. random hours please keep to the normal gym schedule 5:20 AM-1:30 PM and 3:30 PM-8:00 PM (7:00 on Friday) during the week. We would like to have the opportunity to be able to actually shut down in the middle of the day to allow us to attend to whatever tasks might be needed.

Looking forward to possible forced closure/limited attendance via our government(s) we are thinking of a couple of things moving forward…

  • Adding more classes to the schedule if gathering sizes are enforced where we will require athletes to sign-up for specific class times and they will only be allowed in the facility for “X” time frame.
  • We are already writing programming for at home bodyweight workouts, which we will work on adding to the website as needed.
  • Equipment “rentals” as part of your memberships if we are forced to completely close we will look at partitioning out our gym equipment to the community to use at home.
  • Lastly Dani and I have a small gym setup at home and will be considering doing private training or very small group training through our home.

General Health Thoughts

First I have to preface this by noting that I’m not a doctor or a trained health professional, my experiences are only of my own personal experiences with my body, along with working with you all and others who have called CVCF their gym for the last 10 years. As this virus spreads, and I think about myself, our friends, family, clients, etc. and also the future, my guess is that this will not be the last time that I see something like this in my lifetime. The first thing that jumps out to me is that if, for a lack of better words, shit really hits the fan, how under-prepared we are. With growing poor personal health throughout our world, vast and destructive pollution, deforestation, toxins, etc. in my eyes it’s no surprise something like this is happening, I truly believe this is our Earth’s way of dealing with us. I personally hope this sparks a worldwide push towards caring about our planet a little more, but likely just as important, caring about ourselves.

When I first got into CrossFit there was a shirt/phrase that was commonly seen, “Stronger People Are Harder To Kill.” Now you can certainly take this in a number of ways, but in simplest terms, people who have stronger mental and physical health are most likely to be the people that survive any sort of pandemic or mass health issue. This is nothing new, we didn’t get to where we are now without having extremely tough ancestors.

What does this all mean for us? When I look at sickness, health, and everything in between,  I’ve seen people succeed physically and mentally in every way possible, as well as seeing others that have died from disease at young ages, there is clearly one thing we all have going for us, our genetics. We have all clearly been handed a genetic code, likely all a little different than one another, and for some that means being super resistant to diseases, cancer, food allergies, etc. while others are extremely susceptible, and for all of us the truth is that there is nothing, at this point in time, we can do about the genetics we’ve been handed by our parents, grandparents, etc.

However there is an immense amount we can do to either make our genetics shine and succeed, or we can make decisions that bring out the worst and open up the doorways to all sorts of complications. In my eyes there are likely 6 things that we can do to either nurture or genetics and let us be in control of our health, or let them slide and let our environmental stimuluses control our bodies…

  • Sleep
  • Food
  • Stress
  • Mindset
  • Exercise
  • Supplements

Having personally dealt with some issues over the years that have been drastically affected by these stimuli I think it’s important to point out that these super basic, and also items that are very much in our control, likely dictate very much our health and also our bodies ability to combat everything from the common cold to cancer. So as we look to both the near and long term this is a super important time to take stock of what is important in your life, where you spend your resources, financially, energetically, and emotionally.

  • Sleep…make sure you’re getting it. There is arguably nothing more important to your health than proper sleep. I’ve had this discussion with many people before, often those who only get 5-6 hours of sleep, who say they function great on it. Its often not that they function great, they’ve just learned what it’s like to function under lower sleep and have learned to deal with it and forgotten what you can feel like with good, proper sleep. I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum and I can tell you it makes an incredible difference. If you’re not getting it, make life changes now, not tomorrow, not Monday. If you can’t fall asleep at night think about what the causes are and go from there, maybe try CBD, meditation, or other supplements, I personally and have seen many other people have huge success with these protocols. Do something to get good quality, regular sleep.
  • Food…this is no surprise, good food creates good energy, good hormonal responses, good sleep, etc. etc. Just because you exercise doesn’t mean you eat well. This is again a great opportunity to look at what you’re eating, what the quality of food is, and where is it coming from. Is 90% of your food cooked from scratch at home, or does it come from a restaurant or a cardboard box. Doesn’t mean you can’t have both, but this is hugely important to not only your long term health, but as well as your general short term health and your bodies ability to fight infections. Sugar, Alcohol, Caffeine, these are all substances, that especially in moderate to higher intake levels do nothing good and only serve to further beat your immune system down. There is not better time than the present to address how you eat, and given our current situation this serves as a great time to do so.
  • Stress…this one is huge, more and more articles, documentaries, etc. are linking Stress more and more to the causes of so many diseases. I have a grandfather who is 100 years old that had a stress induced heart attack at 40, I’ve recently dealt with some minor health issues that I believe were completely caused from stress and mindset. Your mind is an INCREDIBLY powerful tool, make it work for you not against you. And when it comes to stress, there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to take stock of what the real issues are. One of our members who owns a restaurant just told a story this morning about one of their customers having a freak out because the peanut sauce that was supposed to come with the order didn’t. Step back, look at the big picture, stress should be something that kicks in and helps save you in drastic situations, not something that should be turned on throughout the day pushing our body and mind into the wrong place, and even throwing off our brain chemistry.
  • Mindset…this goes hand-in-hand with Stress, but in a different way. How are you viewing things. If you think the virus is going to kill you, it probably will, if you focus on what you can control and positivity we’re probably okay. Ever walk-up to the barbell and think you’re going to fail the lift, probably means you’re going to fail. I’m sure you’ve never PR’d thinking well I’m going to fail this. Bring positivity into your life, do things that bring you positivity, be around people who are positive, and as we try and preach in the gym all the time, remember many of these situations, often super tough ones, are situations and issues we GET to deal with, because most likely there are thousands, if not millions of people dealing with far, far, far worse situations. Be positive, be thankful, be appreciative of what we do have and try and find the good in even the worst situations.
  • Exercise…I feel like I don’t even need to say much here, most of you know the difference of how you feel coming into the gym on a crumby day and how you feel when you leave afterwards. Between the large social aspect that brightens peoples day, to the endorphins released after training, to the reset of your mind just from 30-60 minutes of stimulus, as well keeping you healthy, strong, and able there’s little reason to not regularly exercise as long as you’re not currently fighting some sort of infection.
  • Supplements…Last but not least you can always add small things to your daily regiment to help further push your quality of health. This can be in the form of your typical edible supplement as well as steps you take throughout your daily life to get your body what it needs. Especially for us living in Vermont, it can’t be emphasized enough to get outside when you can, especially on days when it’s sunny out. Try and get out in nature, soak up some D-3, and maybe use it as a way to step back, de-stress, and evaluate situations and decisions in your life. In addition some supplements that Dani and I have both seen great success with as well as hearing from many of you who come to the gym…
    • Zinc
    • Vitamin C
    • Oregano Oil
    • Garlic
    • High Quality Multi-Vitamin
    • Fish Oil
    • Turkey Tail Mushroom

These supplements have proven very affective for us and have a lot of medicinal research behind them. We’re personally ones to follow a natural course for our “medicine” whenever possible, and find that all of the above has personally allowed me to not have to touch an anti-biotic, ibuprofen, or anything else for almost 10 years.

As we look ahead there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment. We greatly appreciate all of your support as a business and hope that you all can continue to find your way to the gym to exercise to make it a part of your mental and physical health plan. If you have any questions, thoughts, concerns, etc. please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Jade + Dani